Hermione in the Infinity Library
by Hyperjade
Summary: The Library. Nestled in the empty spaces between universes lays an infinite library containing every single piece of literature to have ever existed in the multiverse, stretching far beyond anything imaginable. An endless, intricate system of corridors and rooms that matches the expectations of the person within it, and now, one of those people is Hermione Granger.


**Hello, everyone. This is Hyperjade.**

 **So I got this idea from a friend of mine. We were talking about my concept for the Infinity library (see the below 15k words) and I really wanted to implement this story into my collection. It will be a oneshot. I hope it is received well.**

 **I do this because, frankly, I can. And while it puts off TAC for just long enough to write it, that's probably fine. But the Infinity Library is one of my favorite of all my creations. And to place Hermione in an infinite library is just kind of obvious when you think about it.**

 **I did make an error in uploading, as I am making these edits directly AFTER it (I'm kind of multitasking at the moment.)**

 **The original title was going to be "Hermione and the Writer", but I didn't want it to be received as a self-insert, which it is one hundred percent NOT such.**

 **At any rate, I hope you enjoy. Please, read on.**

* * *

 **Hermione In the Infinity Library**

Footsteps echoed in silence. Utter silence preceded them, and utter silence followed them. They were the footsteps of a lone person. A lone, quiet person.

Evidently one who loved books.

A young looking girl stepped along the stone bricks that made up the floor. She looked perhaps eighteen, perhaps younger, with bushy brown hair and brown eyes. She walked along with a big over-the-shoulder bag hanging by her side, filled with books. Her eyes were filled with a sense of calm, yet with a deep sadness buried within. The girl's eyes scanned the bookshelves to either side of her in the corridor.

The corridor consisted of stone brick floors, and ceilings high above with the occasional chandelier. It was wide, and despite the bricks being somewhat unorthodox, they perfectly lined up in the center to make the crack between the stretch on into the next room, and into the room behind the girl. Floating candles allowed more space for wonderful books on every topic.

Many of the books looked old and had dust on them. The girl scanned the shelves and chose another one to add to the books in her bag. The smaller book fit nicely into an open space, allowing for a few more books on the top.

The girl chose two large books to add to her bag before hauling it out of the corridor and into the cylindrical room that followed. The uniform crack in the stone floor circled the room and spread out into the other three exits. Exits that were composed of stone arches. Within the rooms, paintings covered the walls, with moving characters within them. Above hung a very large chandelier that seemed to exude warmth, making the room feel homely. More floating candles, reminding her so much of home, hung around the room at random, varying levels.

There were windows as well. Windows that showed her favorite views from normal windows in her old school, alternating between eight of them, always three available in each room. They did not obey the laws of physics, if the windows were randomly placed next to each other, they would still show very different views.

She couldn't open the windows. She knew that the images behind them were fake, but she still would occasionally stand there and stare out of the window, remembering her home and feeling placated with her lot in life.

She set the book bag on the table, the same type of table that she used to do her school assignments on in the old library. Then she began to remove those books and stack them up, and then she took two books out of the bottom of the bag. Old looking, large books, the covers of which read "The Golden Trio" and "The Ongoing Story of Hermione Granger"

She opened the latter, flipping through the pages quickly. The magic book seemed to move pages as it went, never running out of pages, and occasionally a bookmark would appear on the right and travel over to the left as her finger skimmed the pages that passed her by rather than her finger passing the pages by. With every bookmark, she would open the page up and reread it. She saw this object as a magical diary, a wonderful way to remember everything important. The book literally wrote itself constantly.

Hermione Granger first read of the day she met Harry and Ron, then of their various exploits within the castle. Then, she had disapproved. Now, she would wish for those days to pass by her again, if that was an option. Perhaps she would do things differently.

Her eyes seemed older than they should be as her fingers skimmed past years four and five of Hogwarts. Those were troublesome years. She read of how everything had begun to go well, how the desperate battle paid off, and then….

Then she began to read in detail. Not aloud, but with much more focus, the kind of focus she would give a book on enchantments.

" _The detonation amidst the war that truly should not have occurred set everything on the path to ruin. Ron and Hermione were knocked away from the blast, tumbling along the ground, the stone bricks proving a hindrance as was evidenced by the new scrapes and bruises the teenagers now bore."_

"" _Ron!" Hermione shouted, scrambling to her hands and feet and pushing herself forward into a run. She was struck with a blue bolt from the spell 'flipendo' and tossed away from her partner. Granger groaned and tried to get up, only to see a death eater standing before Ronald Weasley, his cloak billowing to her left in the wind and his wand out. The red haired boy was unconscious, unable to defend himself. "Vermillious!" Hermione shouted, unleashing a bolt of green lightning at the threat, who casually waved his wand and deflected the magical attack"_

"" _Petrificus Totalus." the man snarled, striking Granger with the charm, who was instantly rendered immobile. "You are trusted in the wizarding community. If all is somehow lost, having the likes of you under an imperious curse could be… Beneficial, even if it is to let Lord Voldemort kill you personally. This one, however…""_

"" _Ron!" Hermione Granger screamed, struggling desperately, as the remorseless man pointed his wand at the defenseless unconscious student and screamed "Avada Kadavera!""_

" _Granger screamed in rage and horror as she was blinded by the green light, shutting her eyes and refusing to open them. She could not look. She would not look. She knew that it was over. For her, the war had been lost."_

" _She felt the body binding spell release only for a new one to take hold, and her eyes were forced open to see the face of the unidentified man, who was holding her in place with his wand, and she found herself being held upright to face the man. He chuckled in a sadistic manner, as the girl was at his mercy"_

" _He pushed his wand straight into Granger's forehead. "Imperio," he said. Hermione felt the warm, inviting feeling wash over her, but her mind was strong, and she had been trained. She saw the man who had murdered her best friend and partner, and shut the curse's effect down immediately. The man made some meaningless orders, just to test if it had worked, and he had seen that it had not. He scowled. "Listen, girl. There are far worse ways I can make you do my bidding.""_

" _His warning made the girl shiver. What did he have that could affect her? She was unaware of such a spell. And this began to frighten her. For the first time, she truly wanted someone to die, namely this man in front of her, and her fear was that of failure. "Imperiocorpus" he incanted, causing Hermione's body to lock up again as the levitation spell faded in the unidentified magic's presence. Granger collapsed to the floor, her body moving sluggishly. "Now… Stand up.""_

" _Granger's body obeyed instantly, and the girl yelped as her body moved without her command. She tried desperately to do something else, but nothing but her head was responding properly. "W-what are you doing?" She demanded, beginning to panic. The man only laughed at her fear and discomfort._

"" _I am Falmark Garner." he introduced himself. Granger recognized the name of the man; he was an operative in the ministry in charge of developing new spells… She understood now that he likely had a plethora of magical incantations under his belt that could be used by any death eater if he taught them. She began to feel real fear, because her mental control over herself seemed to be ineffective against the enchantment. "And that is a new control spell I have decided to create. The inflicted moves sluggishly, and can often speak, but at the same time, it cannot be fought. It has… mixed uses.""_

"" _Now, come along, Miss. Granger." he instructed the girl, whose body complied without hesitation. She was crying to herself, unable to lift her want to save herself. At the same time, she was calculating. The man was letting her keep her wand, so he obviously intended to make her do something involving magic, perhaps. He truly intended to leave Ron's body lying on the stone of the courtyard, unmoving and lifeless. She had no choice in this matter, and what could she do? She knew that she could only call to other students around her for help or to stay away from her."_

" _They walked for some time, Falmark remaining utterly calm despite the killing curse that had zipped by his head before. Granger was forced to walk alongside him, realizing that Falmark seemed not to care that she was screaming at the other students that she couldn't control her movements and to stay away."_

" _Perhaps he simply knew what was coming."_

" _The man walked into a set of doors and confronted several younger students that were cowering in the corner. "Run away!" Granger screamed at them "I can't control my body, I'm afraid he'll make me do something to you! Run away!""_

" _But the children were frozen in fear. "Show me what you are capable of." Falmark demanded "Use the most powerful spell you know.""_

" _To Hermione's horror, her arm, holding her wand, began to raise towards the students. She yelped and tried to fight it, merely managing to slow the process by what seemed like an infinitesimal amount. Her wand was pointed at the students, and Hermione's tears struck the stone floors while explosions could be heard outside, the war in full swing."_

" _To her horror, her mind began running through the spells she knew of its own accord, finding the most powerful spell she could use. Buried deep within the books she had read, she remembered one that she had never used herself, and had never been explained, only in title and incantation: the magic gate spell."_

"" _Infinicatum Hamoratus Majesco" she was forced to say aloud, the tip of her wand beginning to glow a lighter green than the death curse. She did not know what the words meant, but she was very frightened at the impact the spell could cause if cast properly, let alone improperly."_

" _The bolt shot from her wand at a horrifyingly slow pace, as it struck a point in the air and the energy seemed to pour out of the stationary glowing spell, emitting energy in streams that interwove and formed a door made of symbols in midair, the initial glow shining and filling up the empty space with a darker green, so the intricate symbols were clear. Then, the door proceeded to open"_

" _In the direction of Hermione and Falmark."_

" _The green light shone forth, causing Falmark to shield his eyes while Granger was nearly blinded, unable to move her arms to shield her own eyes. The green energy poured forth, swirling around the two, death eater and Hogwarts student. Neither understood what had been unleashed."_

" _Hermione felt strange. Lighter. Falmark staggered as a green power seemed to start pouring from him as well, and a small light line of energy connected Falmark and Granger, and Falmark's energy as well as the gate's began to flow towards Hermione. The spell on her too seemed to merge with that energy and rejoin with Hermione's, releasing her and allowing her to scramble back away from the airborne door."_

" _But Falmark screamed in pain and rage as an immense amount of energy rose from him and began to flow over towards the girl, and the gate too broke apart and soared towards the fearful girl, who's body absorbed every last stream of it. Instantly, she felt more powerful, all of that energy swimming through her system and self-regenerating. Hermione Granger had tripled her magical potential by absorbing Falmark's energy and the gate's itself, as if the gate was it's own entity that had simply been summoned."_

" _Granger identified the different energies, knowing one was the energy of the man that had killed Ron Weasley, and tried to reject it. It only settled faster as she focused in on it. Soon, it was her own energy, Tripled in potential, a power she had known, a power she did not know, and a power that she hated, all together, meshed into one single energy. Granger saw Falmark lying on the ground, groaning before trying to get to his feet shakily. He angrily turned his wand on Hermione. "Avada kadavera!" he shouted, only for nothing to happen. He proceeded to try and curse everyone in the room, but nothing happened. Finally, he seemed to understand."_

"" _My- My magic!" he shouted angrily "You've stolen my magic!""_

" _Hermione struggled to her feet. She felt weak physically, yet very stong magically. She pointed her wand at the man, and whispered "Vermillious Tria", a powerful spell she could not have managed with her normal magic reserves."_

" _The resulting bolt of green lightning lit up the world as it came from all directions, striking Falmark and vaporizing the death eater. The spell drained her, but she knew she wasn't going to need much more power than that for the rest of the war. The girl turned and looked at the cowering first years, told them to hide, and ran out of the door."_

" _She raced through the battle, ducking death curses and other curses and racing as fast as she could manage, before finding her friend half buried in rubble that had fallen on him while she had been away._

" _She pulled him free, somehow finding the strength, and cradled him as best she could, ignoring the remainder of the battle. His eyes were already closed, and he was covered in cuts and bruises and bleeding, and Granger thought that he looked just as good as he always did."_

" _She allowed herself to cry again, not being torn apart by the stray curses passing through the air. Hermione kept her hand in his messy red hair that was darkened, nearly blackened, by soot during the fight. Gone. Just like that. Murdered in cold blood by a death eater."_

" _She hated everything. She wanted nothing more than to be anywhere else, to wipe out every single thing that had done her wrong. But she didn't do any of these things. She did not stand up and destroy every death eater she saw with her boosted magical power that seemed to be regenerating at an uncomfortably fast rate until it reached its maximum again. Hermione Granger held her boyfriend in her arms for a long time."_

" _Eventually, however, her goodbyes did have to end. Death eaters appeared in front of her, ready to attack the 'defenseless' girl who was mourning her best friend. She stood up and whipped her wand in their direction than any of the four living people present could have possibly predicted. "Flipendo Tria!" she shouted, and a literal tornado of the same energy as a flipendo spell swirled into being right in front of the death eaters, and they were pulled towards it and spun rapidly within the tornado before the knockback element of the spell kicked in and the twister exploded, sending all three death eaters far into the sky and away from the school."_

" _Granger used a levicorpus spell to levitate Ron and keep him near her for a while. She would prefer that she could bury him at the very least. The girl wandered, defeating death eaters and rescuing some students, dull-eyed and acting almost robotic. She barely noticed the battle subsiding, but when she heard that Harry had died, as he was being brought in by Hagrid, she did not go. She turned away, further deafened by loss. She approached the whomping willow, the base of which perhaps being the safest place on the outside grounds."_

" _She spent many hours there, digging a grave in preparation for burial, looking at Ron. She needed a casket of sorts. On a whim, she used 'accio' several times to bring her specific materials, that she had specified. She had taken muggle studies; she knew how to use a drill."_

" _Perhaps it was her shaken, destroyed state of mind that prevented her from realizing that her late boyfriend could have had a much nicer coffin and burial had it been done officially, buying a proper coffin and using it, but in her state she did not think of this. Nor did she find it odd that the whomping willow was not attacking her. But she had done what she could with the advanced summoning technique and the materials, and before she could have second thoughts, she gave him a goodbye and an enchantment to heal his wounds, and buried him."_

" _Her mind finally began to clear as the battle began to subside, wondering why people had begun to cheer and celebrate. Why would they do this? Harry was dead, Ron was dead, Dumbledore was dead… She walked straight through the crowd, ignoring the noise and the words. she needed an escape. A place that she could never be truly bothered within again."_

" _And her need was heard. As she wandered the halls, she approached the room or requirement and thought of what she needed, the door appeared. However, the door was different. It glowed with a light gray, calming power. Its intricate designs glowed while its regular surface remained the same. The girl, believing herself to be alone, opened the door and was blinded by the white light beyond it. She did not hesitate to walk through, and find herself elsewhere."_

Hermione closed the book. She relived this guilt every time she stopped walking. She forced herself to. She could not let herself forget. She had made a lot of mistakes that day. She could have said goodbye to Harry, or perhaps given Ron a proper burial with his family, but she supposed she must have been in shock. A weak excuse, of course. She had made some poor decisions in those final hours. She knew this.

And this place… This… Library… Never ended. Corridors filled with books, uniform rooms, and a very special picture above the fireplace that looked so much like the one in the gryffindor common room, yet with some edited designs that she had once thought she would make to the fireplace in the first place. The picture itself depicted herself, Ron, and Harry talking together. The picture didn't move at all, which was disappointing. At the same time… If it moved, it would only cause pain as she would lead herself to believe that Ron was still alive in a sense, and it would destroy her as she would fall into further delusions.

So she had suspected for a long time that this place was made precisely for her. That it was designed to be some place where she could be happy or at least contented for eternity. And the books! Books from every place imaginable, about everything imaginable. The fiction intertwined with the nonfiction, the stories, the facts, the things that she could learn… And the library would lead her places. She would ask, and the line along the floor would light up and lead her directly to the book she had wanted.

Hermione breathed out slowly, her eyes closed, and reopened the book again, moving to her next bookmark.

" _Hermione walked into the next room and the next, following the light along the floor. Her bookbag merely contained the few largest books that she always carried with her. She was looking for a certain book to read, that had been referenced by another book. The thought intrigued her as she moved at a casual pace."_

" _This next room, however, had something new for once. A young looking girl with blond hair sat, reading a big book. She introduced herself by first name: Annabeth. The girls talked for some time, until Granger learned to see the library the way that others would see it. She focused on the fellow girl, mentally telling herself to see the library as Annabeth saw it, and gazed in wonder as the surroundings changed. Hermione's environment change was no mere illusion, either, as she could make physical contact with the things in Annabeth's library."_

" _The girl saw the many, many pictures of people that this Annabeth must have known, most predominant a boy that looked to be around her age with sea green eyes and dark hair. Hermione did not question these pictures; she had pictures of her own to understand. Annabeth, in turn, saw Hermione's place. Eventually, the girls reverted to their own libraries and spoke to each other as they interacted with their own things. Both of them had lost a lot they were not willing to talk to each other about. Annabeth seemed to recognize Hermione, taking her a ways into the library to have the library lead her to the book she was thinking about. 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire' it read. A 'fiction' story about Harry himself, and Hermione and Ron."_

" _Hermione could not bring herself to read the book."_

" _After that, the girls separated. Neither knew if they would see the other again, but if they did, They had resolved to share some of the more interesting stories they had decided to keep with them. For that reason, Hermione had two books she believed that her fellow intellectual would love to read."_

Hermione flipped to the next bookmark, which was the most recent of the lot.

" _Hermione traveled as she had done for years, her bookbag halfway full once more as she scrounged for something new and interesting to read, her finger trailing along the shelves of the Infinity Library. Her fingers found a book that she thought was intriguing, and she pulled it out of the case. "On How to Bind a Soul to a Book" its cover read."_

" _Interested, she took the rather small book over to the nearest room and sat down and began to read it immediately. She was astonished. It spoke of how to bind a soul of a deceased being to a book and allowed communication through writing. It was a magical enchantment, one that she believed that if she learned, she could pull off."_

" _She began searching the book to understand how to do such a thing, but to her sheer disappointment, the book explained that one had to have the soul itself first. She needed to be back where she had started, and she knew that her door had disappeared long ago."_

" _Nevertheless, Granger kept the book with her, as it was small and light, and would not hinder her too much."_

Now Hermione flipped to the last bookmark, the one that was held where she last had nothing left of it to read. The book was writing itself, describing to her exactly what she was doing as she flipped past the bookmark to where the writing was still going on. Its manner of describing Hermione was odd, as it seemed to interchange between her first and last name as it went. Nevertheless, when she decided that reading her own observations appear on the page was not going to be nearly as interesting as the first time, she removed the bookmark from the last spot and put it on this page.

Hermione closed the book and moved on to the next. A book filled with photos. Moving ones. A magical scrapbook that she had requested for and found thanks to the library. "The Golden Trio" was it's title, and indeed, every picture was of some interaction between her, Ron, and Harry. Some of their best moments, funniest moments, greatest moments, and sometimes even terrifying moments. She would laugh every time she saw Ron complaining about the dog saliva on him without really making the connection that the giant behemoth of a three-headed dog was **right above them**.

She figured that would be in bold in the diary-type book that she had just closed. That moment had been simultaneously terrifying to experience and funny to remember. Ol' Fluffy wasn't that bad. A few snapping teeth moments, but not that bad.

She got all the way until the last page, remembering and seeing her favorite moments of banter, saying her lines aloud as they were said on the picture and remembering their responses. The last pages, however… Were more difficult to see. She saw herself obliterating Falmark. She saw herself getting through the fight, and burying Ron. Dark moments. But the last picture on the last page that marked the end of the golden trio she simply could not look at, as it showed Harry being carried by Hagrid, clearly dead, and being laid down on the ground. She could not watch any further than that, and closed the book.

She has never watched the end of that scene to this date.

Granger put those books away into her bookbag and started reading through some of the other ones she had picked up. For hours she sat there, reading each book word for word, experiencing each story, crying at the sad moments, laughing at the amusing moments, smiling at the happy endings, sighing at the occasional cliche. Hours on end per book, without resting, without doing anything else, reading by the light of the candles and the chandelier.

She never needed food or drink here. She never needed sleep. She never aged. Hermione Granger was no different physically than she had been so many years back. This was life for her, constantly remembering the life she used to have, good and bad, funny or scary. And aside from wanting to distract herself on occasion with the beautiful stories found within the Infinity Library, that was what she wanted.

The girl finished reading the large books she had acquired after twenty-two hours and thirty-seven minutes had passed (She had scored a watch from one of the occasional trophy case looking things that sometimes replaced a few bookshelves, and like the books, the items simply regenerated on the spot.)

When she set the books down on the table, knowing that they would fade away eventually but she could always ask the library to lead her to where she had found them again later, she began to pack up the books that she carried with her at all times. Her most important books and the ones for Annabeth if they ever met again were placed within, and with the bookbag about a quarter full again, she set off.

Hermione traveled along the halls again slowly, looking over the things that were in the hall, occasionally grabbing a book and putting it in her bag. Large books, small books, anything she could grab that sounded interesting by the cover. Twelve Legions. Dark Star. She decided that because it was there, reading To Kill a Mockingbird a second time in her life would not go amiss.

Dizzy Returns had a rather frightening image on the cover, but Hermione put it in her bag anyways. it sounded like a sequel, but normally, the library shows her the first books first… At any rate, she continued on with this until she was in the next room with another full bookbag.

So she read them all again. And then she repeated the process again.

And Again.

And Again.

And Again.

The next corridor had a bunch of loose papers tucked between the books. Nearing the opposite side of the long corridor that she could see, papers literally littered any available space between books, sticking out from the books messily. This was a new experience. Some of the papers had fallen to the floor. Intrigued, the girl walked picked a few books that she wanted to try out, deciding to **avoid** scary covers this time, and when she was ready, walked over and picked up one of the following pages.

" _Private:"_ Granger noticed that the page seemed to be in the middle of something, and was in script format. " _Why doest thou bring the fair maiden with you? Madras: For…"_

The rest of the page was blank as if the work had been abandoned, or the author had come up with a better idea and discarded it. Sometimes that happened. Any type of literature could be found here, completed or not. From the tiniest note to the largest, most impressive book. Hermione had seen little love notes before that she had seen sticking out between books and pulled out. Some of them caused her eyes to widen and toss them over her shoulder because they were **way** too detailed.

The girl found a book cover that she wanted to read. Problem was, it was surrounded by papers that were stuffed in there, messily or not. She attempted a bit of a game of Jenga with the structure, only for about seventeen different papers to fall from the shelf and land all around her feet. Some were filled with words, some were connected to each other, and some were indeed seemingly abandoned.

Hermione recognized the name on a page that was apparently supposed to be a cover page. She had recognized the writing style, but not the works themselves. " _The Tragedy of the Lady of the Nightingale by… William Shakespeare."_

Hermione scrambled with the remaining fallen pages and started to piece the play together one piece at a time. She had read all of Shakespeare's works, as far as she knew. And these were all works that she hadn't seen, finished or not.

The girl scrambled through the bookshelves, wondering why the heck the pages were all separated, and took an entire hour in that corridor piecing together an entire play about a member of royalty confronted on all sides by suitors during a holiday season that built up over time as the suitors tried to discredit one another until fighting broke out and in the drunken madness that the royal had been caught within beyond her control and she was slain along with a host of suitors.

She put it all together and resolved to find something to bind the story together with as she came up with the stack of paper in her hands. She ran into the nearby room and stopped cold with papers in her arms and her bookbag sweeping back and forth from the momentum.

She focused on the man, who seemed to be sitting in air and writing with nothing, and decided to see the world as he saw it, immediately blinking as tall stacks of paper surrounded the man and quite suddenly mostly hid him from her view. He was scratching away with a quill on paper, smiling as he did, writing constantly.

She stood there silently, trying to decide what to say. "Um… Excuse me." she said, cursing herself. She had years of experience doing basically nothing but reading! She should have said something clever, or interesting. 'Excuse me'. She mentally scoffed at herself.

The man looked up, the ever-present scratching noise of his quill ceasing for the moment. "Oh." he said, quickly standing up and dusting himself off. Granger noticed with a slightly raised eyebrow that there was quite a bit of dust that had settled on him. Like he had literally been sitting there writing for days and days on end.

She brought her brow back down intentionally when he looked at her as he made his way away from the stacks of paper that littered his sole desk (and a majority of the floor around his desk) and walked up to her. He looked to be about in his mid-twenties, but like Granger's, his eyes were older than his face, reaching back through the years of existing in the Infinity Library.

"Who might you be?" he asked.

"Please call me Hermione." the girl replied "Hermione Granger."

His face lit up. "Hermine Granger? What a nice name." he said, quickly spinning and putting his quill on the desk because he had forgotten to set it down in the first place, apparently changed his mind, picked it back up, and returned. "What can I do for you?"

Hermione was uncertain of how to proceed. "Well, sir… I was wondering if all of the pages of work in the hallway back there was yours." she explained. She showed him the bundle of papers of the tragedy story she hadn't read yet. He picked them out of her hand and smiled. "Ah, yes. That one. I wasn't too proud of that one, though on second thoughts…"

he looked over each page at intense speeds. He then looked at Hermione and smiled. "There's a reason I scattered the pages about" he explained, and handed them back to her "But you have eternity and that's plenty of time to figure it out."

His purposeful conflicting words had Hermione really intrigued again. She took the pages back and looked over the page numbers as she flipped them. There was something odd about them. She would figure it out later, if possible. But one thing really clicked for Granger.

"Then… You're William Shakespeare?" she asked, looking the man over again in something resembling awe. She had loved his works since she was a **kid**. The man gave her a smile and a nod. "But… I thought you were older when you stopped writing plays in the outside world… and died…"

He laughed. "Very nearly, kid." he replied, startling Hermione. He suddenly stopped for a moment. "Sorry, or my apologies, I was quite close to my forever sleep as I have awaited for, as all await for, when I was deep in my years and my eyesight dimming."

She was left blinking while Shakespeare laughed. "It has been a while since I spoke aloud, much less in the old tongue of rhymes that I once spoke at times. I still do speak it, but more often I write it. I find that my plays are not so beautiful when using what is typically called modern English. My writing has not deteriorated quite as much as my speech."

Granger understood. "Then… You have been here in this library for years just writing play after play? Or… Havest thou continued to transcribe your mind to the page upon your return to the living in the infinite library?"

Then she frowned. "What saved you and returned you to a young age?"

He laughed. "I have indeed, my lady, and… Yes. To answer your next question, Upon my dying eyes a light did blaze, hues of blue and hues of green, to summon those with the appearance of mere children. There they did heal my, sharpening my eyes and brightening my skin darkening my hair and raising my awareness. I did look upon them, Who looked to only have eighteen years or so under their belts, and they took me here without so much as a speech other than their simple words to inform me that I might spend my eternity doing as I wish in this grand library. To answer that question again, they brought me back to life and dropped me in here so that I might live for eternity and write plays forever."

Both intellectuals laughed at their game. "Oh, Indeed sir, such a drastic and complex string of words directed at mine ear, Are'st thou mad? Doest thou play the spider spinning her web of fiction?" Hermione asked, to which Shakespeare, paced after hearing before twirling to look at her theatrically.

"I would commit no such folly." he feigned being hurt "I speak the truth, the truth, and only the truth!"

"Two children who look my age?" Hermoine asked, turning her back dramatically "To appear within the boundaries of your own demise in an array of light and spirit you away unto a glorious adventure like it's nothing? I wonder if thou wern't dreaming."

"But I am here, and I am young, am I not?" the man asked, walking towards Hermione.

She tilted her head for a moment to the left before bringing it back up in one fluid motion. "Now I ask myself whether **I** am dreaming." she said.

"Ah, but this cannot be any illusion." Shakespeare spun her around quickly, effortlessly. "It is far too real, and you are far too real, and my stories are far too real for this to ever come from the mind."

He stepped away and began a soliloquy. "Why, I pride myself in my continuing life as a writer, and a genius! At least, I hear those whispers during the days that I walked the streets of my very old home. To help others sing in glee, to let others weep, to create an illusion made real by real entities with the sole purpose of eliciting the laughter or the tears or the understanding of those willing to listen. With every word, an emotion. with every scene, a purpose. With every phrase, every act, every moment, a story. Words, words words. So many articles, so many letters, every syllable charged with emotion and thought. No. I do not play with illusions."

Hermione nodded. "Then there is little left to discuss." she took a bow. "That was… Entirely improvised and I ran out of things to say."

The man turned around to face her. "Everyone has their limits. Even I have to stop and think sometimes." He admitted, walking over to a comfy chair and sitting down. Granger sat opposite him, looking at the books that she had in her bag. "How old are you now?"

Hermione shook her head. "That there is a question that a woman should never answer." she replied "Older than I look because of this library."

"I do not think I am the Shakespeare from your universe." the man said, causing Granger to look up in surprise and some confusion. "Because I am currently twenty thousand years old. This mess of papers… is only a fraction of my work. I take the best of the best that I make with me when the room grows too cluttered. Things shoved into the bookshelves tend to stay there, of course. You don't age in the library. At least, not physically. To be or not to be, that is the question we do not get to ask. You seem far younger in here." he tapped his head. "So most likely I am not what Shakespeare was in your universe."

Hermione nodded. She knew of the multiverse concept. She had been reading for years in a library that contained every piece of literature in the multiverse. "You're right. It's only been roughly two hundred and fifty years for me. two hundred fifty-seven and about a half."

He leaned back in his chair. "Long enough to get used to the place, but not long enough to let go of everything you left behind?" he guessed.

Hermione shook her head. "I would have let go if I wanted to, but I don't want to forget my mistakes. They remind me why I am here in the first place. I suppose I have accepted it, but I always go and reread that entry in the automated journal I have here and then the pictures in this picture book." she explained, showing the famous writer the two books. He leaned forward and took the picture book first, looking through the two-inch thick creation filled with their best moments.

"I needed somewhere to go, with everyone I truly cared about dead." she murmured. Shakespeare flipped to the back, his brows rising.

"Generally, it's not the best idea to put the worst last." he said, looking at the very last picture that depicted Harry being carried by Hagrid. He frowned. "No… actually, that might have been for the best."

Hermione was confused, but the author shut the book of moving pictures and picked up a book next to him. He held it up, showing the title: Soulcatcher. Granger's eyes zeroed in on the book instantly. Anything to do with a soul existing out of one's body caught her attention pretty quick.

He set the book on the table that was now between them, as if Shakespeare had willed it into his version of the library just like that. Hermione couldn't be bothered to walk up in grab it as it was out of reach, so she quickly jabbed her wand at it. "Accio."

The book sailed into her other, open hand and she quickly opened it up. She skimmed the table of contents in the small book, and her eyes widened. She looked up. "How did you know?" she asked, practically mouthing the question. The man chuckled.

"I discovered who it was that you were missing with your big moving photo book, and I figured you would be looking out for something like this." he explained "And the book peeking out of your bag tells how to bind a soul to a book to allow a spirit that cannot speak to speak, if I'm getting the cover right."

She was flipping through the book, unaware of Shakespeare's explanation, having forgone that in favor of reading through the book as fast as she possibly could. William waited patiently for her to finish the short instruction book in about five minutes.

"Oh god…" she whispered "I need to do this. I need to-"

"Please calm down." Shakespeare requested, drawing the girl's attention. "You have eternity. So please, try and calm down and we can finish our conversation."

She obediently put her full weight on the chair again. She looked to the wall behind William's desk, seeing that he had his own photo frame that was moving, but it showed that famous theater with fourteen sides, with a play going on in the stage.

"Ah." Shakespeare commented "That's the only painting that matters to me. The play is always going on, like one of those movies. And whether it played in real life or not, they play random plays of mine, and I can always mouth the words as they are said-"

Hermione started to giggle. The man looked at her oddly, and she started to explain. "You kept the men dressing as women thing." she said, breaking into proper laughter "For old times sake?"

Now that he obviously hadn't thought about in a long time. He chuckled as well. "This is true." he said with a nod "There are cross dressers on my stage. Lots of them. But like your do it itself diary and that photo book, That thing is… Memories. Precious memories I would like to keep. The best of my stories, when I was alive in my old world and when I was alive here, play. I still believe that the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet and the tragedy of Hamlet are some of the most important of my works."

Hermione raised her hand much like she used to do in school. He looked over at her quizzically. "Sir, did you actually get a set of twins to play in the original showing of Twelfth Night? Sebastian and Cesario, or Viola, were an excellent pair of characters in the way of personality and setting up conflict."

He smiled. "Indeed, I did, Mrs. Granger. I did need them to play in the single part where they were together in one place. Both were male, of course, and getting one of them into a dress for the first part was probably my greatest challenge during the entire showing, because they needed to change quite quickly."

"Please call me Hermione." the girl requested.

And thus, the smile was now a smirk. "Only if you call me 'Will'" he returned. Now both were in a standoff. Hermione was considering the man her superior as she would a teacher, despite having played a game in Shakespearean language. She had lost, and she knew it.

"Okay… Will." she relented. Lo and behold, his smirk became a smile once more. Granger took to staring at the book she held within her hands, thinking that this could be the gift that she had been waiting for for two and a half centuries. "If… If I wanted to come back…" she murmured "How would I find you?"

"Oh, that's simple." William gestured around him with his hands. "The same exact way that you find books you want. Ask. Ask to find me, picture me, and the library will default to lead you straight to me."

Hermione blinked. "That works?" she asked.

"Yes." he replied. "Now, I suspect you want to figure out the secret to that tragedy."

Granger picked up the pack of papers again, the tragedy of the Lady of the Nightingale. Shakespeare was saying that there was a secret in there, a reason that the story had been scattered about in the shelves outside the room. "Let me give you a clue" he said, and handed Hermione a sheet of paper that was another title page. "The Lady of the Nightingale" was all it said. Another title? What?

Instead of asking, the girl began to shift through the pages, one after the other, reading it once more. And then again. And again. She was having trouble doing it by reading it and analyzing it. So, she started looking at the odd page numbers, and the fact that some of them were messed up, perhaps purposefully written incorrectly…

Her eyes widened slightly as she began shuffling the papers and looking at the pages. An hour after this, and she stopped moving. "Oh, Will… You are a **genius**." she said. She shifted through the pages again, putting the new title page on top. "you are a bloody **genius**!"

She was bouncing in her chair. "That's amazing! I didn't even know that was possible! And it fits **better** than it did before!"

The pages were all mismatched, but as Hermione read them, they still lined up perfectly, turning a tragedy of a woman being killed amidst a fight between drunk people who were interested in her to the story of a woman of royalty proving to her suitors that she could handle the lot of them, even beating a few of them herself. The disjointed actions that swapped pages were what did it. Two characters could be arm wrestling drunk in the original, but in the rearranged version, the 'Lady of the Nightingale' trounced three suitors in arm wrestling, and…

"'O, I am slain!'" Hermione recited as she read. "You trixter, she says it **sarcastically** after winning a brawl to spite one of the cockiest of suitors! In the first, you managed to depict her as nice and kind, and… I don't even know! You made two plays in one, and one's about a young innocent girl's demise at the hands of drunk suitors, and one's about a powerful woman that's not afraid to kick somebody's… Sorry, Will, I shouldn't curse or anything like that."

She noticed that amid her ramblings, the author was laughing hard enough to dislodge his internal organs if being hurt was possible in this place. Which it wasn't, and yet… The man loved that someone was so, so interested in his work to the point of squealing with joy upon figuring something out. Two stories in one. Such an impressive piece.

"Now, I would put it together and call it a day, but I need to be able to switch between the two in the final draft while it is officially a piece of writing that someone might find as a single part in the library, not in pieces." Shakespeare muttered.

Granger realized that not having magic for him was a huge disadvantage. "Well, Will, I have a solution I think." she said, standing up. "The library will show me the way. I need an utterly blank book with unlimited pages and no extra weight, and then I'll get a book that teaches me how to enchant something to do just what you want it to, and I'll find Annabeth again, hand off some of the books that I had gotten for her over the past twenty-five years that I think she would like, and I'll come back and… I should be off, I suppose."

Shakespeare nodded. "May you find ease on your path, Hermione, in your endeavors." he said, standing up, only for Hermione to slam into him with a hug.

"Thank you, Will…" she said "You were one of my heroes before I met you, and now… you've been so great to me."

Then she backed off and ran while Shakespeare stood there. The man smiled and spun around to look over the walls and other things. He seemed to get an idea, standing there. He grabbed his quill and dropped into his chair, sweeping his current, less important project aside for a later date and grabbing more paper from the drawer to his left with a seemingly infinite supply. He began to write quickly, decisively.

"One more treat." he said, writing Hermione's name down on his title page along with a lot of other words.

Granger ran through the hallways, never tiring, never needing rest. This was possibly the first time she ever ran in any library during her life. She ran for hours, following the glowing line in the floor, as she had reverted to her own library look as she ran. Sprinting along the paths set in front of her as the center line released a soft gray light.

Hours she sprinted along in the library, bypassing rooms, hopping over tables, or casting a spell to launch them out of her way. She needed to **run** , to move as fast as possible because she knew that she had no other way to do this. She ran because this was the most important thing she would do in two hundred and fifty-seven years.

Never feeling exhausted, never feeling nearly as old as she was, Hermione Granger ran because there was only one thing that was truly important right here, right now.

Days worth of time she just ran through the library as it led to something she could use, something she knew she needed to have. She knocked aside floating candles as she jumped off of the table on her way through the next room, sending it spinning and bouncing around the room.

Five days later, she skidded to a halt, staring at the unlabeled book that was roughly two inches wide in the shelf, a bright orange book with words on it in a language she couldn't read. The light in the floor had redirected along the cracks in the stones, zigzagging from the center line straight to the book itself.

Hermione did not hesitate to tear the book from the bookshelf, scattering about four others ignoring the fact that they clattered to the floor. She pulled it open and started flipping through it. The pages were unlimited. All but the very first page was blank, and the first page had more odd writing on it.

She grabbed the other two books she had, Soulcatcher and On How to Bind a Soul to a Book, she ran and set all three against the table. She opened them all, laying them out in front of her, and set to studying. She tore through the material, excited beyond belief, and upon memorizing the actions depicted by the book Soulcatcher, as it had described how numerous people with different types of magic could manage the same thing, Hermione whipped out her wand.

It said it would take a lot of magic power. She **had** a lot of magic power.

For a solid five minutes, Hermione took intricate, careful actions with her wand pointed in the air around her topic. She refused to be distracted by the wispy gray energy emerging from everywhere in the Infinity Library. It would not truly affect the soul that seemed to exist in the library itself, because she had her own target that she was focusing on.

Her whispers grew louder as a different color, a blue one, emerged through the walls of the infinity library, starting to collect in front of her. The lightning in the room dimmed while the sphere of blue light began growing and glowing.

A powerful wind began sending Hermione's hair flying back, but she paid that no heed. She was utterly focused on the task in front of her. So focused that hours passed like minutes to her, her chanting becoming easy to repeat and call without truly thinking.

Her brown eyes reflected the blue, as it began to take shape. The girl quickly recalled what the other book had told her to do. With her free hand, she opened the blank book to its first page, and changed her chant as the soul became more ghostlike. Timing was crucial. And she brought her wand down and pressed it into the single line of unreadable letters in the first page of the book. Now the blue light started to pour into the book quickly, in a massive display of light.

Granger suddenly felt her magic reserves **drop** like a falling elevator, but she held on as the soul, which according to other books she had read was too old to be summoned in a proper spirit form, was instead pulled into the book. Instantly, the color of the book changed from orange to a glowing blue, and the title appeared in glowing orange. The luminescent book's title still seemed to be writing itself, and Hermione knew it could take days to work.

So she had to do something else. She put away all of those books, and stood up, knowing she had a lot of time to kill.

"I need to find a way to enchant Will's story to be read both ways." She proclaimed aloud, causing the remaining energy in the room that consisted of the massive soul that the library seemed to have to retreat somewhat and that line lit up once more.

Hermione prepared to run again but was held in check by her magic energy, which had basically reached zero and exhausted her, even boosted as it was. She decided instead of lie down and rest for the first time in so many years because magical exhaustion was apparently treated differently than physical exhaustion in the Library.

The girl huffed as she felt the energy return to her quickly. It was nearly suffocating how fast it poured back into her. Even as fast as it regenerated, she still stayed still for several minutes. Blinking a few times at the chandelier, which was swaying a bit, she managed to get up and put her bag back on her shoulder, her books in tow. Once she was certain that those books were utterly secure, she began her sprint down the line again, this time in a different direction.

A mere five hours passed of running before she found her next target. The book on various magical spells, likely including the one she was looking for. She smiled and put it in her bag. It wouldn't' do any more good until she got back to Will. Ignoring the weight of her bag, Hermione told the library that she needed to find the girl named Annabeth that she had met.

She knew this would take a while; the girls had separated after meeting nearly fifty years ago. That didn't matter. What mattered was giving her the books that Granger thought she would like. And maybe she deserved to see the books on soul catching and binding.

And thus, Granger ran on again. Days. Weeks. They passed easily. Quickly. Time didn't matter here. Only the goal and the path to get there. It may look the same every time, but the feeling of **moving** , the feeling of running through the halls endlessly… There was something **fun** about it for Hermione. To run around in a library is something she would not have dreamed of doing when she was part of normal society as a normal magical girl.

So to be doing it now was sort of an occasion, despite how long it lasted. Sprinting, vaulting over tables in her way, she even reread a few books along the way while running, which did cause some collisions, but she was guaranteed not to be injured. Her bookbag never dropped any books, with was either luck or something else, she didn't really know which at the moment. Too busy choosing and reading books for years to bother with a simple 'informus' to learn what the bag could do.

It took weeks. It had been years since the two had met, and years of traveling in random directions at a walk led to weeks worth of running. Weeks that Hermione ignored, despite occasionally pulling a random book out of the shelf as she passed, reading it as she ran. She was getting better at that.

Eventually, running lost its appeal, and she only kept going because of her idea. She was reading a book about some of 'fiction's' strongest heroes on a whim, looking down the list with a raised eyebrow and trying to calculate what kind of power they would need to have for certain things.

Then she slammed into something that very suddenly was in her way. The 'thing' fell over with a yelp, and Hermione tumbled to the ground in a roll that would have left her covered in scratches and floor burns had she not been in the Infinity Library.

She flipped onto her chest and looked up, seeing a very much startled blond girl getting up and dusting herself off, looking right and left for her 'attacker' as if he or she was still in the room, whereas Hermione had wound up behind her.

"Hello" Hermione greeted her, only for Annabeth to whip around with a knife and try to attack the perceived threat. It struck her neck, but glanced off, as anything that might damage either of them do. "The library is kind of a no-violence zone." Granger reminded the other girl, who looked very startled.

"Hermione? How-" she cut herself off.

"I asked the library to help me find you. It led me straight to you." Hermione explained, before holding up her set of books. She walked to the table and set them down while Annabeth apparently made herself see what Hermione was seeing.

She pulled out that stack of books. "Got you some books you would probably like" she said, and then she pulled out the soul related books. "And these…" she said "You might find incredibly useful if you can manage to use them. They have a lot of different methods, so even if your way of using magic is different, you should still be able to manage it."

The blonde came over, inspecting the books. "You... Just came to make a delivery?" she asked "And to say hi?"

Hermione nodded. "Basically." she admitted.

Annabeth picked up the very large book with an illustration of a black sun with the surrounding space a dark gray with pinpricks of light on it. "Authors usually put their last name on their books." She muttered.

"Not that one. It's a brilliant read though" Hermione explained "This entirely unique world orbiting a black sun that acts just like a normal one is surrounded by equally dark planets in the system, filled with monsters, and it's pretty much the only source of color in that system. Monsters that seem to be unaffected by the depths of space constantly move towards it, and it has been getting worse. Beasts formed from shadow try to darken that world, and are being fought back, **but** the amount of them has been increasing over time, and…"

She laughed, cutting Hermione off. "You're just like me. You enjoy talking about the books you read."

"Oh!" Granger yelped, stiffening "Sorry…"

"It's all good." Chase replied, before reaching into her own bag, a backpack, and pulled out some books. "Thinking about it, you might like these." she handed the books to Hermione.

Hermione accepted the books and put them in her bookbag one by one. The girls smiled at each other. "What had you running over to find me in such a hurry?" Chase asked the other girl.

Annabeth watched Hermione's eyes light up. "I met Shakespeare." she said, leaning forward.

"Hang on, what!?"

"Shakespeare. William Shakespeare." Hermione said with a wave of her arms. "I've got to go do something for him, so I've got to dash, and this thing is still ages away from being done with it's magical spell, so I can get everything I need to done before that happens. Just ask the library to lead you to the one I met, and it will. Take your time, though."

Hermione got up and waved a goodbye to the other girl, who responded in kind. Her backpack fell through Hermione's library table as Annabeth reverted to her library's appearance.

And now Hermione was running back, several books lighter, hoping that her friend would manage to find a way to use that soul catching magic, however her magic worked, if she had magic. She knew from her reading that in most universes, magic had a unique way of working.

Now the girl slowed and walked at a fast pace for a long time. She snatched books to read that might interest her along the way.

She **really** needed that table to not be in the center of the room, so as she had done before, she visualized it elsewhere, mentally told the library that she wanted it to be on the side, along with the other tables, away from the center. The library quickly complied, and Granger began the trek forward again.

This wasn't the first time she had walked and read books for a while. She remembered refreshing on some things for transfiguration while walking while her old friends Harry and Ron tried to keep her from crashing into anyone in the process. She chuckled at the memory.

Some of the books were in a language she couldn't read, and she had become fluent in language after language over the years, including languages like ancient greek. This writing seemed to be in circles or something. It was some sort of life story recounting book like her own, so she stowed it away and promised to decipher it later. She had gotten an automatic translator thing that she didn't understand fully a while back, but eventually put it back because part of the fun was learning the language.

Other books were strictly nonfiction in nature, though in her old world, they would be passed off as fiction in a sense. Characters based on heroes, characters that were real heroes, some characters that were not so much heroes but everything turned out alright. Even someone with the worst intentions that was so bad at his job he **saved** the world instead, after which he had a comical breakdown as the people he hated most thanked him for saving them all… All completely by accident.

She found that story particularly funny, and stowed it away. Someday she would head off to get a bottomless bag with a charm to reduce the weight it held from the library somewhere. She would find it in the occasional trophy cases once the library lead her to it.

But slowly, as days passed and she taught herself how to read this new language—Gallifreyans were an interesting people—she found that this language was difficult to decipher as well, but she managed in a few weeks of constant studying.

She was fluent in the written version of the language by the time she made it back to William Shakespeare himself. The man was writing again, not hearing the girl come in. Hermione smiled, and put away the book she was reading and bringing out the book of spells that had what she needed.

For about an hour she searched through the large book, keeping in mind to keep it around because it had some good information in it. But Hermione found what she was looking for.

"You didn't perchance bury that story of yours in that pile, did you?" She asked wittingly, having walked around next to the man and startling him badly enough that he fell straight out of his chair with a yelp of surprise.

He jumped to his feet, smoothing down his hair and looking at the girl with wide eyes, looking about. "How, perchance, might you have done that?" he asked, "Last time, I heard you coming a mile away."

"You seemed very wrapped up in your writing." Granger replied, moving to sit down. "Anyways, I've got what you need, so could I see that brilliant double story of yours?"

He jolted into motion, sweeping his hands across the short stack near the edge of his desk, neatly slipping the story out amidst the pile without really looking and without either getting extra papers or negatively affecting the pile. Shakespeare brought it over, keeping the other story hidden behind his back. "Here is thy challenge." he presented it to her, smiling "Take to it how you will."

Hermione pulled out her wand and immediately started chanting spell after spell, letting the pages rearrange themselves into each of the two versions of the story over and over, before they were switching automatically without her use of more spells. Then, she struck it with a pink bolt of magic, that sealed the story into a book-like format, and she proceeded to draw runes in the air that appeared in minuscule form on the margin of each page and the spine as well.

Fifteen minutes later, she had a book in her hands containing the play. She showed it's cover, the tragedy cover, to William and drew her finger along the spine, and as she did, the cover shifted to show the non-tragedy variant. She drew her finger along it again to change it back.

"I've done it. It starts in the tragedy version, and when someone discovers it's secret, they can read the one that you spent so much time hiding." Hermione revealed, handing the now hardcover book to Shakespeare, who simply looked at it for quite a while. He looked impressed. And grateful.

"One of my finest works…" he murmured "Only thanks to you."

"Oh, I still think…" Hermione pulled one of the books Annabeth had given to her, one she knew Will would love to see. "You have some more meaningful works, even if they can't be switched around."

William Shakespeare looked over the title of the book she held now. "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" he read aloud. "And quite right, too. I have done so much better, particularly in my past so very long ago."

As he tenderly picked the book out of Granger's hands, the girl smiled. "It's not just you." she said "That's every version of you in the multiverse, compiled into one book of unlimited pages, and it automatically goes to the page you want. That's not all that's special, however, and I suspect the last thing is why the girl I met gave it to me after hearing that I met William Shakespeare himself."

The book began flipping pages on its own as the writer set it open on the table. It kept going, for ages. They just watched. Then, it opened up to a blank page. An actual blank page, and it looked like it just kept going.

"It contains every completed work of yours, and if you look at the formatting, it automatically puts a dash and 'fin' at the end. Write in the book itself, and if you want the book to save it across all others of that book, just write a dash and 'fin' at the end. I don't know if you prefer to have stacks of papers all over your desk and floor, but if you don't…"

Shakespeare gripped the quill that remained in his hand. "I can just write it here." he said "Never once did it occur me to ask the library to lead me to something like this. And your friend just happened to have it on you?"

"She did." Granger nodded, happy that the writer clearly was happy with his gift.

"But alas, when you heard those fabled words that so clearly mean that you are to be thanked for your wonderful contribution, this tale is not the one it depicts." Will said cryptically, and at Hermione's questioning look, he took his hand out from behind his back, pulling a big story behind it. "It proved difficult to finish such a piece of art within the mere weeks in which you had departed temporarily, and yet it is done, because I did not hesitate at any point in writing it."

The book was set in front of Hermione Granger. She sat still as a statue as she read the title. A major blush reached her cheeks. 'In Search of Meaning' was written as the title, and beneath it… 'For Hermione Granger'.

"I don't… Why…" she whispered, covering her mouth. Someone being kind to her for absolutely no real reward… It had been a foreign concept to her for so long, ever since everyone she knew died… She didn't think that it would ever happen again.

Will smiled. "Because despite everything you have experienced, where others would fall into a pit of despair and self-loathing, you mostly accept your past, recognize that it could have gone different, and despite everything… You are a girl in an infinite library. Not trapped…"

His fingers treated the table in front of him like a drum. "But gifted with the ability to explore. And it is only a gift if someone sees it that way. Deep down, you do consider it a gift. It is so important that you do that, because to live forever, to exist in a place where anything can be found, and anything can be done… If you see it as a gift, then you truly appreciate this place, and that, to reiterate, is the most important thing."

Hermione was still staring at the book. "And… Because I appreciate being able to exist here, you spent an entire month's worth of time doing nothing but writing? Just for me?"

"Just for you." Will said, sitting back as Hermione managed to open the book, and she gasped in astonishment at the list of names. She shifted through the book, looking at random lines.

"This…. This is exactly how Ron would have said it." she whispered "And Harry was captured perfectly, and… How?"

Will gave a good hearty chuckle. "Why, I looked through every one of those pictures you showed me in your picture book" he explained "And would you imagine it, if I were to deduct their personalities and gather what they might say in certain situations? I know characters. I could depict them very well, very easily. As for the other characters, I had to make them up because I had no idea who else you know. Even so, that hardly matters."

"..." Hermione was silent as she began reading through the story proper. It was in play format, as they always were, and yet… She knew every detail. She knew every single action and motion taken by all of the characters. This was the most beautiful of Shakespeare's writings that she had ever read, and as the story unfolded in front of her as none ever have before, she realized that she had not read such an impressively written story in her life, and that was completely disregarding that she herself was in it.

"Will… William Shakespeare, you are a genius." she whispered, hugging the story to her chest now. The man smiled in an 'oh I know' sort of way, proud of himself and feeling quite happy with the girl's reaction.

The two talked for quite some time. Hermione had started to gush about how impressive Will's wide variety of works was, and Will eventually requested that they find something more… Neutral to discuss.

"What will you do now?" the writer asked Hermione. "Wander?"

"I suppose I would have to set off eventually." the girl replied as casually as she could "An infinite library? Who am I of all people to resist? That being said, I have some ideas coming to mind as well. Ideas that I truly should have considered before."

Will opened his mouth to speak, and then chose a different response. "I suppose I'll find out someday, won't I?" he asked, grinning.

Hermione smiled. She stood up, putting Shakespeare's gift to her, her picture book, and her automatic diary book, as well as some others in her bag. "I suppose so too." She replied. "O', for what I might do from this day forth… Farewell, Will. I beg of you, never stop writing."

"O' Never! Never! Never!" he responded. "And goodbye, Hermione. I feel that we may meet again someday."

Hermione turned and walked out of the room with a wave, while Shakespeare peered at the book in his hands. "Clever girl." he said with his finger on the blank page to write "I'll keep stacks of paper there for image, but why not do the real work here? That is the way she believed I would do it, is it not?"

He got more inspiration once more, understanding what could be done next, and he spun to his chair to once again begin losing himself in his endless work that he loved so much.

Granger walked a few rooms across, making certain that she could not be heard by the writer. Soon, she turned to face the corridor she was next to.

"Alright, library." she proclaimed "I need a bag that will hold as many books as I need it to without weighing much, and I need a set of identical books with unlimited pages that are directly connected and can act as a way of instant communication, and I need something to write in that journal with, maybe as many of those as the connected journals and I think they shouldn't be able to run out of whatever they use, and I also need a new bag that is always light and cannot lose the special items I put in it, and it needs to be bigger on the inside as well. Finally, I need… Oh, let's say find something I need but don't know I need."

She envisioned her hallways having more orderly stone bricks, making five available lines, and all five lit up in different colors. She smiled. Always there for her, the Infinity Library.

She took a single step in that direction when a humming noise distracted her. Her eyes widened and she whirled and ran to a table. Dropping her bag on it, she shifted through the stuff until she found the glowing blue book. Glowing on the cover was an intricate R.W. that took up the top half of the front cover and was a bright orange, making it obvious against the blue book. More orange coloring had spread along the edges of the pages within. Finally, it had been done.

She set it down and flipped it to the first page. The writing atop the very first page glowed orange though the pages themselves were pure white, available to be written on. Hermione ignored the lack of a writing utensil at the moment. The girl excitedly sent out a mental thought. " _Hello?"_

The writing appeared on the page in a cursive, black writing. While this reminded the girl of how Harry said Tom Riddle's diary worked for that particular spirit, she did not care about the similarities. What was important was the response she hoped was coming.

'...Hmm? Where am I?' appeared directly underneath Hermione's words, in an easily readable font, not cursive, and glowing orange.

" _A book. I've done it, I've brought you back. In a sense."_

'A… Book? Brought me back? Everything's been dark for so long…'

" _...Is it still dark?"_

'Not really. It's glowing. A bright gray, actually. Bloody hell, my head hurts. What hit me?'

" _You died when you were struck with a death curse. And I suppose I dragged your soul into an infinite library and connected you to a book so that I could talk to you."_

'A death curse!? Hermione… Where is Hermione!? Is she safe?'

" _Of course I'm safe, Ron. I'm okay."_

'You're safe? But I asked about-...'

Hermione giggled. As slow as always, that one. " _It's me, Hermione. I finally managed to save you."_

'By putting me in a book? I'm getting Tom Riddle vibes.'

Hermione winced. " _That's because it works similarly. Voldemort put a piece of his soul into the book, and it contained his memories and a consciousness. I put your soul into a book too, and so you're pretty much in the same spot."_

'How'd you do it, Hermione?'

She smiled. " _That's like asking me to do your homework for you, silly"_ she thought " _But really, it was way, way complicated."_

'Yikes. Let me live… Again… Without complications.'

" _Done. Ron… I'm so glad…"_

'I'm glad too, Hermione. Did we win?'

" _What?"_

'Did we win the war?'

" _Oh come on, Ron… Okay. I think we did, but I was going here by the time that happened."_

'How's Harry?'

More wincing. " _He's… Gone, Ron. Hagrid carried him to the school… He wasn't breathing, Ron. I've checked the image in a magic photo book I found again and again. He wasn't there. People were celebrating later about winning… But by that time, I had gone."_

'Oh… Gone?'

" _I'm sorry, Ron. All I managed to do at all during that battle was destroy the man who had killed you in cold blood. I'm so sorry…"_

'It was a war, Hermione. You can't expect a truly happy ending from a war. Not unless…'

He had trailed off. Hermione was already learning the patterns of the book and how they related to speech. " _I suppose you're right, Ron…"_ she returned.

'And where did you go?'

" _I entered the room of requirement, wishing the a place that I could never be interrupted by wars or danger or fear, and it brought me here. To the Infinity Library, as it's called. I don't age. I haven't aged for so many years."_

'...Sounds like your kind of place.' Ronald Weasley responded eventually. Hermione could practically imagine the tone he would take with those words.

Hermione's laughter translated onto the page. " _Are you all right, Ron?"_

'Besides being a book?'

" _Yes, Ron. Besides being a book, you goof."_

'I can't see much other than the gray light surrounding me, I don't know what that is, and then I hear your voice, and I can talk…. I feel like I'm floating in nothing at all, and I don't feel like I have a proper body at the moment.'

" _It was the best I could manage with what I had available, but I know how to use the library now. Maybe someday I could find a way to change that. As for the gray energy… I think that's the soul of the library itself. It showed up when I dragged your soul into it."_

'A living library?'

" _It's so impressive, Ron. It matches what I want it to look like though it's random branching paths are always corridors and they often have different books in them… And the rooms. I have everything I might need, including reminders of my favorite views of Hogwarts."_

'It sounds like someplace you would love with all your heart.' Ron figured, a near repeat of his earlier statement.

" _I couldn't think of a better way to live for eternity. Now that you're back, I think life can be truly perfect."_

'Immortality huh? And all you did was enter a library? And that Voldemort bloke's been looking for immortality for so long. Kind of thick of him. Bloody hell, Hermione. I'm joking about a mass murderer.'

" _That was five hundred and twenty-seven years ago, Ron. I think in this case, it is_ _ **not**_ _too soon."_ Hermione smiled " _A bit of research and all of that death would not have happened, though. If he could achieve immortality just by walking into the room of requirement hoping for a place that he could never properly be interrupted."_

'...What are we going to do from now on?'

" _Why Ron, I'm going to do what I've always done. Read every book I can find. And I can talk to you while I'm at it. And we don't have to worry about anything anymore. Not a single thing."_

'Not a single thing? It sounds like paradise.'

" _It_ _ **is**_ _paradise, Ron."_

The two spoke for so long, that Hermione lost track of time. The library was patient, never pushing her to move forward and do what she wanted to do. It waited and catered to everyone's needs and lit up the paths to progression for them.

'Well, I can't keep you waiting, can I? you've got things to find.' Ron told Hermione many hours later 'And hey, if I'm going to be trapped in a book forever, I might as well get into knowing what's so great about them.'

Hermione laughed. " _Alright, Ron. I'll keep the book open when I read, and I think it should all come to you as I consciously think every single word."_

She hesitated, and closed the book. It continued to glow, continued to be ever-present. Hermione set the book back into her bag, and looked at the glowing lines that led into the corridor. "Alright, which of these leads to my bag that will keep things safe?" she asked aloud, and the blue glowing line second from the right blinked thrice.

Granger smiled, and she looked back into the room again, taking in the view from the Hogwarts windows, and she spun and walked into the hall without another word.

* * *

So much time later, something very interesting happened for Shakespeare. William paused as he heard something interesting coming from dead ahead in one of the halls, and he paused his work in the book Hermione had given him to write in. He had indeed kept the stacks of papers, but he had shortened them, tossing away a large amount of the failed attempts, so that he could see over them this time.

A young girl walked into the entrance with a backpack on. She was smiling, setting it down on his table, having apparently already shifted to how he saw his library.

"William Shakespeare." the girl said with a degree of awe in her voice. She stood opposite him on his desk, not taking either comfortable seat moved to the center of the room with the table.

He smiled. "Call be Will. Please." William requested as he stood up, offering his hand. "it is a pleasure to meet you. What is your name?"

"Annabeth Chase."

"Welcome, Annabeth." he greeted her, walking around to sit down. "Please, sit. It's been months since I've had a visitor."

"Mere months?" the girl asked in reply, obediently sitting down. "You must be talking about the Granger girl."

"Hermione, yes." William replied.

As if called, the girl ran into the room, skidding to a halt and pointing straight at Annabeth. "You're movements are so appallingly unorthodox you had me going in circles while the library tried to lead me to you!" she exclaimed, and after a moment of stunned silence, seemed to notice where she was.

The brown haired girl now wore two packs. A bag hanging over her left shoulder that was blue and filled to the brim with books, and a separate pack over her right shoulder that was more like a backpack and seemed to contain less stuff. She carried both without much difficulty. In a side pocket of the second pack, she had a set of pens and pencils, and the books on the top of her first pack were all the same and stacked on top in a platform of regular looking brown books.

And with all of that, she also had a circular piece of glass in a gold and gray ring hanging from her neck like an amulet.

"Will!" she exclaimed, tapping the odd glass object. "I know it took me ages, but the library had this thing here that it seemed urgent for me to get, when I had gotten the rest of this stuff, and even running the whole time it took me two months to get here."

"Well, you're just in time." he gestured to nothing "I… Don't have a third comfy chair."

His sheepish continuation of his analysis of his own room was cut off as Hermione rushed over to snag his working chair and bring it around the desk to sit by the table. "It'll be fine." she said as Shakespeare spluttered something about his working chair and how he was going to have to position it perfectly again.

Hermione set her glowing book on the table and opened it up, showing a large amount of writing on each page. A half inch wide and flat piece of glowing cloth-like material acted as a bookmark, which she pulled out of the way to show the words written in the book. Then, she brought out two of the pens that she had and three of the journals. One had her full name written on the cover, and both of the others had white blank spaces on them in their place.

She set down two of the pens. One was a ballpoint… And one was a quill-looking pen that was basically just a pen with a fake extension that looked like a feather.

Annabeth's breath caught at the sight of the ballpoint. "Is that…" she whispered "No. It's not."

Both other pairs of eyes turned to her. "What's not?" they asked.

She shook her head. "It's nothing." she turned her head towards Hermione. "And for those books you gave me… They won't work. Not after what happened. His soul not being nearby isn't the problem."

Neither Hermione nor Shakespeare asked questions about it. Hermione pushed the books without names over to them. "These are connected journals with unlimited pages." she said as she did "I figured the quill pen was appropriate for Will, and I don't know… I just chose the regular ball point pen for you, Annabeth. Anyways, if you write your name on the cover, the name will appear with a colon when you write in the journal, and then we can write to each other, talk wherever we are, instantaneously. That was one of the things I was getting. Along with… Everything else."

Will quickly wrote 'Shakespeare' on his journal cover, opening it up to the first page. Hermione proceeded to write a quick message, without her name and the colon, and prior to her simple message of 'It works quite well, yes?' on Will's journal, her name, exactly how she wrote it on her cover, appeared and it's colon. Indeed, one could read each other's statements and have a conversation.

"That's brilliant, that is." Will said as he left it lying open on the table. "That's quite good. That's what you've had the library put together for you?"

"It seemed more than happy to help" Hermione answered as Annabeth too wrote her name on her book. "In fact, when I asked for 'something that I need', it led me straight to **this**." she tapped her new necklace before taking the glass circle off. It, and the small threat it hung on, hung from her hand. The girl held it over her glowing book, where it hovered with the glass facing her. The thread quickly vanished as it happened.

The glass began to spin, the gold and gray indistinguishable from the glass as it spun faster and faster, a light pouring from the book into it. And then, it stopped instantly while facing the area next to Hermione. It immediately flashed a scorching light at the area next to her, which acted a lot like a projection.

Ronald Weasley's image took form from the light like a projection, and yet…

"You can both see why it was so important to find." Hermione said as Ron smiled.

"Yeah, having some way to see and interact with what's going on was just what I needed to actually see Hermione again, not just talking through a book that I was trapped in." he concurred.

"Technically, you are still trapped in there." Hermione pointed out "But I **will** change that eventually. I'll find a way. And if it takes me a thousand years of walking through the library while taking the occasional break to read, I'll do it."

Ron visibly sulked. "I haven't been able to give you the kiss you deserve yet…" he muttered. Hermione laughed at the projection of the boy, who still wore his school robes as he had been, and they were messy as always, full of wrinkles. But health wise, from what Hermione could tell, he looked perfectly fine. Ron continued to sulk while Hermione caught up with William about recent things.

"And Annabeth…" Hermione said, meeting the blonde's eyes. "If you ask the library to find a way for you to fix what is wrong, it will lead you to it, no matter how far you have to walk."

She smiled. "I'll remember that." she nodded. "And thank you."

The girls shook hands, and both said their farewells to William once more while he pulled his desk chair back into place. Hermione stood up and walked to the entrance to the hallway, spinning towards Ron's image. "Well, Ron. Infinite library, Everything ever in the entire multiverse at our disposal… Where shall we start?"

He looked thoughtful. "Well, Why not start with finding some stuff that brings back memories… Like… I imagine Harry's invisibility cloak is here somewhere, if the library. Let's find some of the things that we can use to remember. Like… Look at it and-"

"I get it, Ron." Hermione giggled "Memories. Sure. Let's go get Harry's cloak, or at least the library's equivalent."

He smiled. "It used to be you who liked rambling on about your ideas."

"Good point. See you when we next stop." Hermione replied "Accio"

The book closed and sailed over to her outstretched hand, Ron's image vanishing as Hermione's glass circle also flew to her and regenerated it's string, which she caught with one of her fingers. Book open in her hand, and the glass circle around her neck, she finally waved goodbye to William, who chuckled with a wave back.

And the last living member of the golden trio disappeared into the Infinity Library.

* * *

 **Okay, explanation time. Before any mouths open about Hermione being the last living member of the golden trio. Harry woke up again after death, but Hermione never got that far in viewing the picture because she could not bear to see it. Eventually, she will see it, and feel much better. That being said, Hermione is technically really old right now, as she has been in the library for years now, so Harry would have gone from old age anyways.**

 **It's up to you to interpret where she goes from here for the rest of eternity. It's an infinite library.**

 **I hope this story has been enjoyable. Please tell me what you thought of the story in your review. By the way, as an extra thought, what would your Infinity Library look like? It matches your personal view of it, unless you tell yourself to see it as others do.**

 **This is going to be a one-shot. If you want to see more Infinity Library one-shots, that's going to be tough. I know Hermione as a character alright. Other characters that are bookworms... Not as much.**

 **The words for her spell that did the weird thing with the magic at the start. Made up. I literally pulled them out of thin air, and I wanted the first one to have something to do with Infinity. That's literally it. If those words mean something, oops.**

 **Thank you all for reading this. Good day to you all, remember to review, and have fun!**


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